If Mama Ain't Happy, Ain't Nobody Happy

Alright, hang on to your seats. I'm going to tackle a really really controversial subject today. I need to start this post by warning any sensitive readers that I did include some strong and somewhat graphic language in this post-though no cussing or crude sexual content (one sexual reference)-use discretion. I'm also not sure I would recommend this post to a pregnant first-time mother...maybe wait till after you deliver.

First, I want to say something to the lawmakers in this country: Quit treating the women of this country like we are naughty children who don't know what's best for us. Stop assuming that we all lead lives like those of your closest acquaintances. Don't make the mistake of believing or encouraging us to believe that the men in our lives are all honorable and would never put us in a compromising situation.

I grew up Southern Baptist-devoutly Southern Baptist. I was staunchly Pro-Life...no exceptions. My view on abortion is not so clear-cut these days. That's right, I'm going to talk abortion-feel free to click away now if it's too much for you.

I still believe life begins at conception. 

I still believe if you find yourself pregnant and don't want a child, adoption is the best option. 

BUT I now find it audacious to think that I can make such HUGE decisions for another woman-I just can't. 

I've mentioned it a few times, but I lost 2 babies very early on before my son was conceived. Losing them at about the age that many early abortions are performed has driven home to me just how difficult the decision to get an abortion must be. It's also driven home to me how sad it is when it happens. I hate the thought of someone choosing to end those babies' lives when I (and women like me) have suffered so greatly wanting a baby. But who am I to force any woman to choose otherwise?

I need to begin with that I loved my pregnancy and enjoyed it immensely (and that is sincere).I threw up very frequently while I was pregnant. From 8 weeks till I was in labor at 40 weeks, 4 days, I got sick at least once a week. And in the beginning, it was at least once a day. I was put on medication to keep me from throwing up so I wouldn't get dehydrated. I had a friend who was hospitalized to have fluids because she couldn't even keep water down.

There is no way to know from pregnancy to pregnancy, from woman to woman, who will get morning (ha!) sickness and who will not.

I gained 60 pounds during pregnancy. I was hot and I couldn't walk normally. I couldn't sleep for much of it. I was pregnant for 4 days longer than they said I should be and I didn't go into labor on my own. I was in labor for 28 hours. I threw up, had to be put on oxygen, and had my stomach muscles clench tightly over and over with contractions with less than 60 seconds in between. I finally had to go into major surgery with no more notice than 20-30 minutes. I had major abdominal surgery where they cut my stomach completely open, moved any organs in the way, cut open my uterus, and removed my baby. I was then in surgery for another couple of hours while they removed the remains of the pregnancy, sewed me up and replaced my organs. I was on painkillers for months afterward. I didn't hold my baby until he was over 3 hours old. I couldn't move or get out of bed without serious pain for weeks. I had to return to the doctor at about 5-6 weeks postpartum to have sterile gauze shoved into my gaping open incision with a long q-tip...without prior notice or pain medication. I had to have this done twice a day for weeks (though I learned to take pain meds 20 minutes before starting). My husband had to inflict this pain on me. I had to care for a tiny infant, often by myself, during all of this. 

My birth and postpartum experience were not typical. Neither were they that rare. But I didn't know ahead of time that all this would happen. 

But I chose to risk it...because I wanted a child so badly! I can NOT imagine going through all of that without wanting my son...or without having him there to make it all worth it. I am NOT saying that abortion is ever actually justified. I'm just saying you are asking more than you know-and I think more than many of these men would be willing-of these women. Women who were raped or their relative impregnated them, young girls, women whose mate deceived them or forced a pregnancy on them, women who already have more mouths than they can feed, women whose birth control failed them....after these situations, you would then ask them to endure all of the above? That's more than I can do.

But let's say you're comfortable asking that of a woman. You're comfortable forcing HER to go through all of that to suit your morals (which I don't happen to disagree with...but who knows if she does). 

Wouldn't it be better to prevent the pregnancies to begin with than to try to force her to not end it once it happened? The results of pregnancies which are forced on women are almost always unwanted children. How awful for a child to feel unwanted! How awful for a child to be abandoned. How awful to know that your mother thinks of her rape, or her father forcing her to sex, or any other horrible situation every time she thinks of you, your gestation, or your birth! Every child is a blessing...but not everyone believes that. And certainly not every parent/adult treats every child that way. How many children are abused or neglected because they were not wanted? How many children grow up to commit suicide-if they grow up-because they were not loved? How many children live in poverty and are hungry because their mother can't afford to feed them? How many children know the shame of their parents being ashamed of their very existence? I don't know numbers. But one is too many for me.

But you are determined to take away even that option. You don't want her to even have access to affordable or free birth control. You would rather tell her to keep her legs shut. Who are you to determine another person's sex life? Maybe she tried to keep her legs shut but the stronger man pried them open. Maybe she is too young to even know what that means. Maybe she believed her partner was practicing birth control but he was not. Maybe she is married but struggling financially. Maybe she is unhappily married. Sex is a human need and it is profoundly unrealistic to just believe that people are going to abstain from it as a group for prolonged periods of time. We were created to make more people...it's part of our make-up. It is part of what has made our current way of life possible that we are able to control when (to a certain extent) that happens.

Financially, it is so much cheaper to pay for the prevention of a pregnancy than the result (whether that's abortion, pregnancy, child, miscarriage, adoption, etc). 

Women know enough, by in large, when we are ready to have a baby-when we make enough money (or our partner does) to support a child, when we are willing to be unselfish enough to give to another being so much, when our bodies can handle pregnancy and childbirth, when older children are old enough to handle becoming a sibling, when our relationship is at a good point to nurture a child. We don't always get it right. But we are the ones who have to be sick, hot, heavy, miserable, in pain, etc to get that child here. Shouldn't someone trust us enough to decide when/if to do that?

I know some people will never understand this. I know that men will never fully grasp what it is to have a child. I think it would behoove the male legislators of this country to look around them and notice that not many women legislators or constituents are supporting the recent anti-abortion legislation. It is not because we hate babies or don't believe in life at conception. It is because we trust our sisters. It is because we know, sometimes with the wisdom of motherhood, that there are other ways to prevent abortions without asking these women to go through so much physical hardship-preventing pregnancy chief among them.

And women, it was vocal women speaking out who began the common usage of  birth control in this country. It was women who forced society to realize that a woman deserves to be able to plan and decide herself how to handle her fertility. It is women who can make these men realize now that they canNOT take that right from us now. It is women who can make them realize there are better solutions. It is women who can stop the condescension and patronizing of women by men who believe they know better how to deal with this issue. It is women who need to take back our place as equal citizens rather than letting men demote us. Let them know that if "Mama" ain't happy, ain't nobody happy!

Mother's Day

I have been pondering this post for days now. I honestly still have no idea what to write. This topic is close to my heart in such a painfully intimate way.
When does a woman become a mother? This woman who is just like any other woman, walking around, doing her usual activities suddenly becomes the center of a person's universe, or she suddenly has someone else at the center of hers, or both. It can shift everything about the woman. It is earth shifting in a tiny, focused, huge way.
But when does it happen? Does it happen when egg meets sperm? Does it happen at the first roll or jab of infant in womb? Does it happen at first breath, first tiny cry? Does it happen the first time a child utters "mama"? Or the first "I love you"? Does it happen at the bang of a judge's gavel declaring it so? Does it happen with an exchange of rings? I can't answer this question. Becoming a mother can happen in so many different ways! I have become a mother in all of the above ways with the exception of the judge's gavel.
I first became a mother when a beautiful golden haired angel twirled me around her tiny pinkie finger. She cemented it I think the moment she took my face in her hands and told me “You’re a good Mama Karen.” I gained some legal title of (step) mother when her daddy put a ring on my finger but she and I know that our bond was forged long before that day. I became a mother again a few years later when a tiny, tiny person took hold deep in my body as happens everyday for all time. This person and I never met but he or she made me a mother in their own way. His/her sibling joined the first about a year later. I became a mother in yet another way with the grasp on my heart and body of yet another tiniest of persons. He grew and thrived, though. And with each new milestone-that first popcorn flip, that first jab of hand or elbow, that first rolling motion, that first pushing me away when I smooshed him from the outside-he more firmly grasped my heart. With every moment of his life, I am more a mother and more forever his. I was the center of his world for so long-maybe I still am. He has been the only baby in the world for 2.5 years. Every moment has new meaning because I am this little person’s mother. Even now, I know that my words will fall so short of telling you how he has changed everything.
But I feel like I’m leaving something out even still. Because I don’t know how to express that for 2 years before my son ever came into being in any manner, I was a mother. My daughter made me a mother in my heart even before that but my angel babies made me a physical mother somehow. And as I think about the incredible joys that only my son has brought me, I can’t help but remember that dark time. The times when I thought no pain could be as soul-wrenching and gut clenching as that. The times when I knew in my deepest heart that I would never know the joys I live now, that I would never hold a child of my own flesh. And the reason I never will forget that time and never can is because I know so many women hurt in this way still. My heart aches for every woman who has seen a double line and then no heartbeat, for every woman who has taken a blood test to find her body no longer registers as clinically pregnant, for every woman who has experienced the pain of labor and pushed a dead infant from her body, for every woman who has watched her child take their first and then last breath, for every woman who has walked into a fertility clinic, for every woman who has not had the money to walk into that clinic, for every shot or pill taken, for every ultrasound without a happy ending. Infertility in its many forms robs women of motherhood’s joys and I want to say that these women are still mothers. If you know a woman struggling with infertility (and I include miscarriages and stillbirths as well as secondary infertility in that definition), please in some way remember they are a mother, especially on Mother’s Day. It may make her cry but even a simple note or flower or “happy Mother’s Day” may make her feel less invisible.
I can’t make it a downer post, though. While my heart aches for those unfulfilled mothers, my heart swells with joy and just knowing I am so blessed. Because I am a mother but I also have mothers. And I have THE best.
My mom is incredible. She has the voice of the sweetest angel, she cooks the best Southern comfort food and guilt inducing food, she keeps a beautiful home even when she’s so busy she has to schedule time to breathe, she paints and draws pieces worthy of display in a museum, she is brave, she is ambitious, she is stubborn (this is a good thing, I promise), she is hard working, she is loving. She has been through hard times and beautiful times and I am so thankful she is enjoying life now. When I think about my relationship with my mom I think of homemade playdough, of mopping the floor just because I loved to do what she was doing, I think of cheerleading and mission group, I think of A&P flashcards and cooking dinner on my own. My mom and I have been through a lot together. I feel I have a bond with her unique to just me and her because she was home with me while my siblings were at school (I am much younger) and because she and I had to make it on our own for a while after my biological dad left. Some of those memories are so bittersweet they make my heart cry but at the same time draw me closer to my sweet mother. I love to watch her now with my son. She has delighted in his every moment and I feel such kinship with her watching her love him almost as much as I do (hey, I AM his mom) and knowing that she was in my shoes my lifetime earlier.
My mom’s mom is another mother I have…a grandmother. And Sunday is a day to celebrate her as well. My grandmother is in some ways now only half a person. She enjoyed nearly 61 years tethered to one of the greatest men who has ever lived and she is learning how to survive without him. I am proud of her for doing as well as she is. I love her dearly. She can show me a world I can only imagine or read about because she lived in it. She is a link to my past, to my history. She dotes on my babies and I feel such a warmth just to sit with her and hold her hand. I feel honored to live in the home she shared with my grandfather for half of their married life. I feel their love and their joy and their legacy each time I walk through my own living room.
When I got married, I became a legal mother of sorts to my sweet daughter but also I gained another mother. I have the world’s best mother-in-law. She is kind and nurturing. She is the personification of a warm hug. But she is also real. She has never been afraid to cry. I have seen her hurt so deeply and I have seen her claw her way out of a pit into the sunlight. I am so proud of how far she has come in the time I have known her. She is meeting herself again in so many ways and finding blessings in it. She has blessed me in ways she doesn’t even know. She also raised this man to whom I am joined and she taught him to treasure me and my children. I am so grateful for her.
For not being sure of what to write, I realize I became wordy! I mostly wanted to give this post as a gift to my mothers in my life and maybe someday to my children. I also hope that those mothers and those who have mothers who read this will think on it and find joy and gratitude. Please let your mother or a mother figure know you appreciate them this weekend. Please hug a mother-even if she is only a mother in her heart, especially if she is a mother only in her heart. We are so blessed to have this relationship of motherhood…both to give and to receive. Happy Mother’s Day!